I can't
by KatieBY
Summary: She got her old expandable bag and collected her belongings. All this negative energy had taken its toll; it was time to leave. She paused on some old photos of her and Ron smiling at Hogwarts. They looked happy. These smiling children pictured were only ghosts of a past that clearly would never return. They were very different people now, destined to take separate paths.


**House: GRYFFINDOR**

**Class: History of Magic**

**Category: Drabble.**

**Prompt: ****[Song Prompt] Turning Tables by Adele**

**Word Count****: 688**

**Special thanks to my Gryffindor team for betaing this chapter**

**warning: possible cannon divergence**

**I can't**

The small apartment was in total disarray. It had seen better days: the cold wooden floor in the winter, the paint chipping from the walls, and a slight smell of dampness was coming off of a leaking pipe.

Ron had said he would fix it, and that they would move soon, as this was just a temporary place. They would a better one to start a life together, they would just have to work harder, Hermione had certainly worked hard, the ministry was a really bureaucratic and macho place, and Harry's friend or not, a witch born of Muggles was at the bottom of the food chain.

"How can you do this to me, Hermione?" Ron whispered from the second-hand sofa in the room. With the glassy look and a beard of several days growth. "I have lost my brother, my family is destroyed, you also want to see me suffer?"

She could never reason with him, any comment was the perfect preamble to an argument, in some cases he could not even remember why he was arguing in the first place, but these encounters always left a hole in her soul, fueling the sinking feeling that she expected to end after the war.

"Ron, we need more income, the house is falling apart; my job—" she started again.

"Since you have that job, you feel that you are the one who sets the rules in this house, I also live here, you know, and you have neglected everything here; you are never for me, and you are never in this house," the indignant redhead cut her off, caring little that the last month's rent and services had been paid by her. "You don't care, how I fee; do you think I want this? I was born to play quidditch and that is what I will do. I did not fight in a war to settle for a boring job like yours!"

She knew she would end up not being able to reason with him no matter what she told him, she would always be the insensitive dreambreaker, she would always be the villain.

Leaving him ranting in the living room, she retired to the bedroom. She wouldn't give him anymore ammunition to hurt her, as his words were like bullets to her heart. She had lived so much at her young age, and she knew that she deserved more.

She opened the closet in the small excuse of a room; it made her feel claustrophobic, much like her current relationship. She got her old expandable bag and collected her belongings. All this negative energy had taken its toll; it was time to leave.

She paused on some old photos of her and Ron smiling at Hogwarts, he ran his hand over her shoulders, while she hugged his waist. They looked happy. She was not sure if war or some other circumstances had led them to where they are now, but seeing those photos overwhelmed her with sadness and nostalgia. It also filled her with determination. These smiling children pictured were only ghosts of a past that clearly would never return; they were very different people now, destined to take separate paths.

After stowing her life in the bottomless bag, she slung it over her back and left the small room.

"I'm very hungry Hermione, don't we have any more food in this house?" Ron shouted, in denial of the current situation. He was so used to being cared for and fed by her, that he had become an entitled brat.

Leaving the room with the small bag, she looked into his eyes trying to get close to herself before speaking.

"I can't do this anymore, Ron; I've been working constantly, setting aside my dreams, my life, waiting for you to get up and help me build a future, but you just stay here waiting for me to not only bring in the money, but also make your dinner and clean up after you…" her voice on the verge of cracking, she could say no more. "Goodbye." And she left.

"Hermione…?" replied the shocked redhead.


End file.
